There is one thing you can be sure of with Dominic Thiem this week – nobody in the eight-man field has worked harder than him to make it to the Nitto ATP Finals. While rising up the Emirates ATP Rankings, the 24-year-old Austrian has gained a reputation for being one of the Stakhanovites of the ATP World Tour – the suggestion being he’s as dedicated and productive as the worker once mythologised by the former Soviet Union for his industry. If there is a significant tournament on, you will usually find Thiem as one of its participants. He loves to play, and is certainly not a disciple of the trend among some of the elite who lean towards a ‘less...
If, as someone once said, Andy Murray resembles “a tennis pro drawn by Dr Seuss”, then David Goffin, as a Belgian with blonde hair, pink cheeks and a lean frame, is always going to attract comparisons with Hergé’s creation: Tintin. So don’t be at all surprised if the 26-year-old’s matches by The Thames are presented in some quarters as The Adventures of David Goffin. And Goffin himself has hardly distanced himself from this in the past, telling one interviewer that if he could be any comic book character, he would be Tintin. Weighing a Tintin-esque 68 kilograms, which is under 11 stone, Goffin is comfortably the lightest qualifier for this year’s Nitto ATP Finals – for comparison, Rafael Nadal and...
As a dad, you need to pick your battles with your kids. So while I wouldn't ever want to jam my story down my sons' throats, I like to give them a few examples here and there of what I accomplished as a tennis player, including how I won this tournament five times. They're 12 and 14, and I'm teaching them how I was never just handed a trophy, and how I had to work hard, and make lots of sacrifices, to be the best in the world. I'm telling them how you can achieve anything, just so long as you want it badly enough. My kids are proud of my career and curious, too, and occasionally they might come...
Watch highlights of Roger Federer beating Juan Martin del Potro for his eighth Swiss Indoors Basel title. Watch live tennis at tennistv.com. Getty Images photo.